Dear Editor,
I am writing this letter to try and clear up a few things with
respect to the Mexican American Community Services Association and
the misuse of retirement funds. I am the former chief steward for
MACSA employees and for four years worked at El Portal and Academia
Calmecac in San Jose. There are many leaders in the bargaining
unit. We are covered by a collective bargaining agreement through
SEIU Local 521. There is a grievance process in place for contract
violations. It is this process that we have been following
regarding our retirement funds. We are currently in the resolution
phase.
Come out and support MACSA at the school board meeting March 19
Dear Editor,
I am writing this letter to try and clear up a few things with respect to the Mexican American Community Services Association and the misuse of retirement funds. I am the former chief steward for MACSA employees and for four years worked at El Portal and Academia Calmecac in San Jose. There are many leaders in the bargaining unit. We are covered by a collective bargaining agreement through SEIU Local 521. There is a grievance process in place for contract violations. It is this process that we have been following regarding our retirement funds. We are currently in the resolution phase.
First, originally MACSA employees were not aware that their retirement funds were being used for operating costs. However, when this issue first came to our attention we made sure to notify the employees after which they began to exercise their labor rights through the agreement. Also, for the past year we have been meeting regularly with MACSA’s management through the Labor Management Committee to address this concern. Management has already in good faith returned some of the retirement monies to employees in several different increments.
Second, it saddens me how many in Gilroy have been so quick to dismiss the many positive things MACSA has done for our community and Santa Clara County for the past 45 years. Thousands of children and families have benefited because of MACSA and the hard work of all it’s employees. It saddens me even more how many have been quick to serve as both judge and jury in ordering for El Portal to shut down. El Portal was created because GUSD was failing to serve this student population that had a high dropout rate.
Although I no longer work for the schools, I personally witnessed many students enter as 9th graders with no desire to even come to school, very low academic skills, and strong gang affiliations. Somehow El Portal transformed their attitude toward education and many of them began for the first time to take their studies seriously. They began to believe that they could become something in this world with an education. There were many firsts at El Portal as many students actually read a whole book, wrote an essay, developed a math project, and took on a leadership role. As a result many students from MACSA did in fact actually graduate from high school and many went on to college. One of our first graduates of Academia Calmecac is graduating from UC Berkeley this May. Some of our graduates have even returned to work with MACSA to give back to their community. This is success.
Third, I am not saying that what management did was right. What I am saying is that they were already working on resolving the issue and returning the retirement monies even though the process was taking much longer than expected.
Lastly, I ask that the Gilroy community come out and support and help to strengthen MACSA including El Portal on Thursday, March 19 at 7 p.m. at Gilroy School District’s Board Meeting.
They have a proven track record of running successful programs such as their pre-school and family literacy after-school programs ranging from K-12 (which is presently serving approximately 550 students), and adult day health care for senior citizens. Not to mention the programs that are held nightly at the multipurpose center at El Portal ranging from dancing programs, marshall arts, thai chi, Friday night jams and summer day camps (with approximately 300 students served this year) just to name a few.
Our community as a whole stands to benefit if we invest in strengthening MACSA, one of our most valuable community resources. Our youth especially stands to benefit if we can work on further supporting El Portal and their mission of “empowering students to excel personally, succeed in college, and flourish and lead within a diverse world to create positive change.”
Amalia Rodriguez, former chief steward and El Portal and Academia Calmecac employee, Morgan Hill
Free at last to do important scientific research with stem cells
Dear Editor,
Recently, KGO radio was interviewing Julia Ransohoff, a 17-year old Menlo-Atherton public high school student and finalist in the national Intel Science Talent Fair. (Four of the five California finalists are from public schools.) Her project: the differences between male and female stem-cells on the repair of damaged heart tissue.
She was to meet with President Obama later in the day as he signed an executive order allowing federal funds to be reinvested in stem-cell research. This will end eight years of Bush’s political ideological and sectarian assault on independent research, publication and science education. Science research data will no longer be required to fit a predetermined religious or political agenda.
The illogical, irrational, faith-based editing will be replaced with, as Speaker Nancy Pelosi stated, “Science, science, science and more science” in decision-making processes.
The flow of research and technology out of this country will be reversed with the stroke of the president’s pen. Competition for federal funding will attract the brightest researchers attempting to find answers for debilitating diseases such as Parkinson’s, ALS, diabetes, and heart disease.
Maybe, just maybe Ms. Ransohoff will take her knowledge to the next level, and conceivably one of her insights will propel a whole new generation of young people to demonstrably re-engage the sciences reinventing our society as occurred decades ago in our lead-up to space travel.
Dale Morejón, Gilroy
